Starting a new job can be terrifying. Especially when you have a lot of personal bullshit going on in your life. I know from experience, as I’m sure we all do, that starting a new job can be stressful and uncomfortable. You are full-fledged thrusted into an unfamiliar setting where you are exposed and vulnerable. Unfamiliar with your physical surroundings as well as your new colleagues. It takes a while to settle in and get comfortable with your surroundings. In Hunt Her Kill Her, the main character, Karen, played by Natalie Terrazzino, has the worst possible first day at work, and has to literally survive the day. Most of us just hope to get through our first days of work remaining employed by day’s end, Karen’s hope was to make it out of her first day alive…
Hunt Her Kill Her was written and directed by Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen. In the style of a ‘home invasion’ movie, except the invasion is occurring at a place of work, instead of at home, Hunt Her Kill Her follows Karen, on her first shift as a janitor at a giant furniture factory. Karen is a down on her luck, single mother, clearly having domestic issues that are hitting her incredibly hard both mentally and financially. But most of all, physically. Karen is doing whatever she has to do to make sure her daughter, Lily, is taken care of.
We learn early on that Karen has an ex-partner who was physically abusive, and Karen is doing her best to rid him from her life and the life of her daughter. As Karen’s first day (night) begins, she is introduced to multiple characters (all of whom treat her horribly) and is given a tour of the factory, Karen is assigned her duties as the night shift janitor. It is quite clear from her interactions with her new colleagues that she is not well liked, or welcomed, and in so many ways, totally alone…
Just like Karen, the audience is also given a brief tour of the factory, so the facility’s size and stature is clearly established from the beginning. After receiving a package from a creepy nighttime mailman, Karen takes some time before opening the package. She hears noises coming from all angles, and scrambles around shutting any open door and trying to find out what the hell is going on. Them she opens the package, and all hell breaks loose. There is a note for Karen in the box, and as she looks around, there are four people in masks surrounding her, having infiltrated the factory, and the manhunt to kill Karen for reasons unknown begins…
As Karen is evading these intruders, who are dead set on killing her, there are so many tense moments that see her almost being caught. A wonderful staple in action/horror movies, the ‘almost catch’ engrosses people in the best possible way. It is an exhilarating feeling, and something that maybe (hopefully) most people can’t relate to in real life, but when done well on screen, the ‘almost catch’ is a thrilling sensation that serves as the heartbeat of ‘on-the-run’ or ‘home invasion’ style movies. Hunt Her Kill Her handles these moments very well, as Karen has to jump, duck, slide, sprint, hang, and climb her way around the factory to avoid detection and evade the intruders.
Disregarding the sometimes comically cartoonish inability of the intruders to get their hands on Karen, sometimes bordering on Roadrunner & Coyote-esque clumsiness, these intruders are still quite imposing, and deliver a series of entertaining chase sequences.
Hunt Her Kill Her is a quick 92-minutes of exciting action. There is nary a dull moment. I was very impressed with the violence, as nothing was just simple ‘boom you’re dead’, there was clearly a lot of thought put into the elaborate kill scenes, and the gore is omnipresent. The motive for the invaders is a little bit too see-through, but that did not affect the viewing experience.
Overall, I would definitely recommend Hunt Her Kill Her to fans of the genre, as I found it to be an incredibly entertaining, effective and tense action/horror that is more than just a simple action/horror picture. Karen’s eventful night on her first shift of work at this factory is the metaphorical personification of the horror she has to deal with on a daily basis by way of the misogynistic men in her life.
Hunt Her Kill Her is opening theatrically on March 3rd, 2023. From Welcome Villain Films and Trauma One Entertainment.
Wicked Rating: 6.5/10
